I want to protect you and your loved ones from becoming victims of crimes by the catholic church and all abusers of human beings. I want to give survivors of sexual and physical abuse a voice to be heard all over the world. All abuse of children and adults by religious groups and by any organization or individual must be stopped. We can add our voices to a growing, worldwide community of people who want truth and justice. Please share your experiences with me and others on this blog.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Pope Francis you have company: other faiths and groups that abuse children

There’s
a saying, “birds of a feather flock together” and in this case the birds are
different religious groups and what they all do is sexually abuse children. Although Pope Francis and the catholic church
are notorious for abusing the most children for the longest time these
perpetrators are not alone.

It’s
good that the catholic church has had so much press and revelation of what goes
on behind closed church doors. Now, the
truth about other religious organizations (and Boy Scouts and athletic organizations)
is seeing the light:

Mennonites

SNAP,
the Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests has a new chapter: SNAP-Menno
an Anabaptist-Mennonite chapter formed by twelve survivors of sexual abuse and
their advocates. One of the founders, longtime victim-advocate Ruth E. Krall,
an emerita professor at Goshen (Ind.) College who dedicated decades of her life
to understanding and penetrating the deeply hidden plague of sexual abuse among
Mennonite clans. Krall wrote a book, The
Elephant in God’s Living Room, about Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder’s
sexual abuse of women.

Barbara
Graber, a former professor at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg,
Va., is an associate editor of ourstoriesuntold.com, a website devoted to
preventing sexualized violence among Mennonites. As a survivor of sexual abuse,
Graber was drawn to the “wealth of knowledge and hope” in the SNAP
organization. “I was overwhelmed with
emotion walking into a room of several hundred survivors who had, like me, been
sexually violated by the same persons who taught us about God and were members
of our faith community,” Graber says about the 2014 SNAP annual conference.* There are other SNAP chapters for
Presbyterians, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, children of missionaries, Orthodox Christians
and Boy Scouts, among others.

The
Sins of Brother Curtis: A Story of Betrayal, Conviction, and the Mormon Church
by Lisa Davis is an account of one of the most prolific serial child molesters
in the U.S., Frank Curtis. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints, Curtis was a Sunday School teacher and Boy Scout leader, so
he had double access to children. He molested boys in several Portland, Oregon
from 1976 to 1991. At a lawsuit trial against the LDS Church is was discovered
that bishop had told the victim’s mother that they “knew” Curtis was a
pedophile and hadn’t warned the family—that it was discovered that the church
had known for years that Curtis was a danger to children. (Sound familiar Pope
Francis?) Curtis was excommunicated (for homosexuality rather than pedophilia) then
re-baptized and returned to the positions from which he preyed upon children.

So
what do the Mormons have to do with Boy Scouts (other than molesting
them)? According to Davis while the Boy Scouts of
America is a separate entity from the LDS Church, but the Mormon church is the
largest single sponsor of the BSA. So almost all Mormon boys are Boy Scouts and
many have been molested in both places. So the LDS Church decided that leaders of
church Boy Scout troops had to be checked out by the BSA – that’s like asking
the fox to watch the chickens.

The
LDS must have used the catholic church for a role model: it took so many years
before their crimes saw the light of day, there were so many victims, and the church
fought a battle to keep it secret and the perpetrator “repented” and was given
another chance to have access to children. Like the catholic church, the LDS had
the deep pockets and the lawyers to wear the victim’s lawyers down. [The LDS
Church’s lawyers] were fighting a war of attrition, in which one side wins just
because the other side can’t keep up.

It
turns out that Curtis had a criminal record from way back – stealing, armed
robbery in the same area where Al Capone did his dirty work. Curtis’ criminal
record said that he had inappropriate sexual behavior with boys. There was a
clue that was missed. If, in 1929, they say that he’s having sex with young
boys, and his last victim was molested in 1991, that’s more than 60 years.

Jehovah’s
witnesses

Again,
like their counterparts in the catholic church Elders in the Jehovah’s Witness
leadership have been covering up child sex abuse. Recently, a group of ex-Jehovah’s Witness
members put up a billboard calling out leadership in the church for failing to
adequately address sexual abuse — and even for actively covering it up. The
billboard points viewers to a website (www.JWAWAKE.com) that offers evidence
for the claims. The group hopes for the message to make an impact during
upcoming conventions, which thousands will attend.

They want to hold Elders accountable for failing
to report sexual abuse. Now, Elders are instructed to only turn over to
authorities cases in which there are two witnesses — which means that in
addition to the victim, either the perpetrator must confess, or the abuse must
have been performed where another church member could witness it — something most
sexual predators know how to avoid. They’re asking every Jehovah’s Witness to
contact the governing body of the church and call for change -- to call for
Elders to be ordered to report every incident, with or without a witness. The
billboard will be present through two Jehovah’s Witness conventions on July 31,
and August 7. Having the Elders be
accountable is a good step to take but direct reporting to the police would be
better for the children.

Revelations
on Rabbis

It
not only Christian denominations sexually abusing children, the Jewish
institutions in Israel and in the U.S. do their share of abuse.

In
Israel the past week, two men heading religious institutions in Israel were
added to the list of sex predators in the religious Jewish world. Rabbi Ezra
Scheinberg was caught by police two weeks ago at Ben Gurion airport trying to
avoid arrest on charges of rape, sexual harassment and indecent assault. Ten
women have come forward – with more expected because the court lifted the ban
on releasing his name. Scheinberg, 47, married with eight children raped women
who came to him for spiritual counseling, and told the women it was part of
their healing treatment. (We’ve heard that story before).

One
of his victims said, “After all these years of your intimidations, we are no
longer scared. Your scare-tactics no longer work on us….If you had one drop of
integrity of justice, of truth you would ask for our forgiveness. But your
heart was always made of stone.”
Scheinberg’s students, originally
shocked, threw his books in a big trash can, and staff are calling him “an
abomination.

Just
like Pope Francis and his bishops, the Chief Rabbi Eliyahu, was the cover for abusive
rabbis. Dr. Hannah Kehat, one of the founders of a group established by
Orthodox activists to investigate complaints of sexual abuse within the
religious sector, said Eliyahu “waged terror against any woman who dared to
complain.” The victims were called liars
in public and learned that rabbis support the offender and not them.

Like
their catholic counterparts, many rabbis advise and encourage victims and
survivors of child sexual abuse and their families to not report these crimes
to the police. They believe that incidents of child sexual abuse should be
addressed internally, led by the rabbi. To keep victims from going to the
police, they defend the perpetrators saying “he has a wife and children so why
make his entire family suffer?”, “the abuse happened many years ago,” “it was a
moment of weakness,” “he’s a righteous, God-fearing person,” “you’ll be
bringing shame on you, your family and our community,” “you’ll ruin your
marriage prospects,” and so on.

Because of the closed Orthodox society there is
greater opportunity for abuse and cover-ups – for example, having large
families, use of male mikveh (ritual bath-house), limited or no sexual
education, desire to protect the reputations of leaders/rabbis and
institutions, isolated communities that often reject the use of mainstream law
enforcement, the existence of extreme taboo/stigma etc. Some experts believe that around 50% of
Hassidic boys in Brooklyn are sexually abused. Much of the community is in
denial but like the catholic church, exposure will wake up the faithful.

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About Me

When I was three and a half years old, I and my five year
old brother Frankie were raped by a catholic priest and put in St. Agnes Home and School in Sparkill, NY. I was beaten every day and then smothered by a catholic
nun. I didn't die but I was in a coma for almost year, leaving me brain damaged. After we got out, my
brother killed himself because he couldn't help me or accept the abuse we received. I want everyone to know
about the brutality and crime then and still going on in the catholic church. I want to stop
the crimes the church commits against our children and us and get justice for the victims. Give me your ideas
so that we all succeed in making this world safer for our children.